zuchka/railway-mysql-exporter

auto-magically extract metrics from your Railway MySQL database

MySQL Metrics Collector for Railway

How to replace user root with user exporter

This template will work immediately on any railway project that has a MySQL database deployed. However, it uses the root user for access, which is not ideal.

For better security, you should set up a dedicated exporter user in your MySQL DB. The following are detailed instructions for setting that up and adjusting the Railway environmental variables:

1. log into your MySQL DB locally using Railway's connection procedures. These are listed in your MySQL details page.

2. run the following commands to create a new user named exporter. Be sure to replace XXXXXXXX with a strong password of your choosing:

CREATE USER 'exporter'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'XXXXXXXX' WITH MAX_USER_CONNECTIONS 3;
GRANT PROCESS, REPLICATION CLIENT, SELECT ON *.* TO 'exporter'@'localhost';

3. Return to the Railway UI. Navigate to your MySQL Collector service and add one new environmental variable: create a key called MYSQL_EXPORT_PASSWORD and set the value to your new password. The MYSQL_EXPORT_USER variable is already set to exporter.

4. Update the Dockerfile and the .my.cnf file in your github repo. The appropriate replacement lines are already present, but commented out. Comment-out the old lines and uncomment these new lines. Push your changes. Railway will redeploy the collector with the new settings. Your collector is now using a dedicated exporter user instead of the root user!